The Big Me | Rabbi Joey Haber

You know what you need to realize when you're looking around at the world? The world is not telling the truth. You know, I once read this somewhere that back in the day, the world really lived in, like, a Little Me. And today, the world is so much more focused on the Big Me. I’ll tell you what I mean. Back in the day, no one had T-shirts with crazy statements on it. The keyboard didn't even have an exclamation point. People didn’t have bumper stickers, claiming which school they went to and where they came from and my kid's an honor student. That wasn't the world. The world thought smaller. Dwight Eisenhower's cabinet maybe had 25 members in it. Only one of them decided they were worthy enough to write a book. In fact, they went into a high school. They did a poll of high school seniors in the United States of America and they asked them, How many of you think I am very important? 12% said they think they are. But now contrast that to our world today. The world today is all about the Big Me. Everyone's always sending exclamation points and emojis and things that are exciting and wow and they have T-shirts and they have bumper stickers and they have billboards and they have messaging. Everyone's making a big deal of everything. You post pictures, you send messages out to the world. Everything's big. In fact, they went into a high school in 2005. They went to high school seniors, and they said, What percentage of you think that you're very important? The answer was 80%. You’re a kid. Why do you think you're a big deal? Because we basically have it wired to think that we're a big deal. And because of that, when you see things out there, you see everything hyped up. You're seeing everything made much bigger than it is. In fact, I’ll give you a cute, little story. My Shul, one Motzei Shabbat, had a basketball tournament. And they had a basketball tournament. My little son is 10 years old, it's not really made for him, but he says: Can I join? I said: Okay, I'll let you join. He comes home that night, Motzei Shabbat, he has a huge trophy. I’m like: Mosh, where did you get that trophy from? He says: From the tournament. I said: Oh, did you win? He said: No. The person who won didn't want the trophy, so I asked him: Could I take it? And I took it home. If you'd walk into my son's room and you cared about basketball, you’d be like: Wow, you have such a big trophy. Truth is, he did nothing to earn it. And that's most of what's out there. When you’re walking around the world, you see things and everyone's showing you their trophy, because everyone wants to show off their Big Me. But it's not true, because no one's living a life that's really totally as big as they make it look. No one really is living a life that's full of trophies, the way they portray it. In fact, when you come home on Friday night, we walk home and the Gemara says, we walk home with two angels. One angel is a good angel, the other one is a bad angel. And they come into the house and if the house is set beautifully with the table set and the beds made and the candles are lit, then the good angel gives you a Bracha and says: Next week should be the same. And if the house is a mess the bad angel comes in and says: Next week should be the same. I have a question. Why can't I come home with two good angels? What do I need a bad angel for? Friday night is such a beautiful time. Why do I need a מלאך רע? The answer is because that's how your week was. Your week had some good and some bad. That’s how every week is. It says: You walk into your house on Friday night and bring into the Shabbat, you're bringing in the week that you just went through, and your week has some good and some bad. It's all about deciding what is more important to you. So when you look at people's lives and they make it like it's all good and this is great, this looks great, and that one looks great, and that person looks great, and it looks like they have this trophy and that trophy, don't ever get fooled by trophies, because everybody's putting out a picture that's so much bigger than the reality actually is.